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Self-concept and Social Processing in Adolescents with Eating Disorders
Eating disorders (ED) are a group of psychiatric conditions that impair both physical health and psychosocial functioning. Anorexia nervosa (AN) is an ED characterized by an inability to maintain an adequate, healthy body weight, along with persistent disturbances in eating behavior and body image. AN is a disorder with considerable morbidity and mortality, with a weighted annual mortality rate of 5 per 1,000 person-years. Although AN can resolve acutely, many patients relapse soon after weight-restoring treatment and more than half of patients with AN show signs of the disorder for years. We believe that aberrant processing of social information is a key component that contributes to the development and maintenance of the disease. We hypothesized that a more negative view of both self and social environment in adolescent AN patients and increased sensitivity to negative social interaction contribute to the pathology of AN. The project followed a cohort of adolescents receiving treatment for AN as well as matched healthy controls (HC) recruited from two clinical sites: Children’s Medical Center Plano and Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania. Clinical status assessments at baseline, 3 months, and 6 months were assessed through percent expected body weight (%EBW), responses on the 13-point abbreviated eating disorder examination questionnaire (EDEQ-13) and the 25-point abbreviated Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS-25). Social self-report questionnaires at the three timepoints included an abbreviated 14-point Internal Personal Situational Attribution Questionnaire (IPSAQ), the Rosenberg Trait Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), and the Social Reward Questionnaire (SRQ). AN adolescents had significantly lower %EBW compared to HC (M = 80.28, M = 101.77, p <0.0001). Total EDEQ-13 scores at baseline were also significantly higher in the AN group compared to HC (M = 2.95, M = 1.40, p = 0.0003). The RSES score was significantly lower in the AN group compared to HC (M = 22.22, M = 30.62, p = 0.0038) and of the five subscale scores of the SRQ, the AN group had significantly higher scores for prosocial interactions compared to HC (M = 28.67, M = 26.39, p = 0.0362). Responses to these selected social questionnaires suggest that AN adolescents have lower global self-esteem and a tendency towards self-blame in negative social scenarios compared to their HC. Additionally, the AN group had a significantly higher SRQ prosocial interactions sub-scale score when compared to their healthy counterparts, reflecting a value of fairness and equality in social interactions.